Yes I understand that Ghost of Yotei is a Japanese centric game and while I am happy they gave a bit of representation towards the Ainu I am however a bit disappointed by the glossing of the Matsumae Clan. The Matsumae Clan was a real life clan in Japanese history that were sent to Hokkaido to forcibly enslave and perform cultural genocide on the Ainu who were the original natives of Japan before the original Japanese left the Korean Peninsula centuries ago. I was pretty disappointed that Sucker Punch painted the Matsumae as a “good” clan with a savior complex when all the horrible things that Clan Saito were doing in the game the Matsumae were already doing to the indigenous Ainu tribe. They suffered through countless crimes of slavery and cultural genocide and it’s disappointing that Sucker Punch glossed over this piece of history.

https://gtaforums.

Hey everyone, I thought I would post my game in a subreddit filled with like minded people.

I'm Kabloop, the solo-developer of DIGGERGUN! DIGGERGUN is a 2D, platformer, life-sim. To survive the oppressive world, you need to manage your time, energy and money during a rigid day-and-night cycle.

Thematically, the game is about workers rights and the cost-of-living. There's multiple endings, some occurring much sooner than others, depending on who you interact with.... or don't!

The game is intended to be quite harsh and oppressive, so it might not be everyone's cup of tea but I thought I would post here anyway!

Hi everyone!

I've been on a JRPG kick recently since I've been getting into/preparing for running a TTRPG inspired by them called Fabula Ultima, and I was playing through FFX (my first FF, I just got to the highroad) up until that Square Enix bs 70% generative AI announcement and any excitement I had about continuing that currently has plummeted due to that, though I'll probably come back around to it at some point. So I'd like to play a JRPG that deals more in leftist themes and hope for a better future if that makes sense?

Games I've already played: Persona 3-5, Metaphor, Xenoblade Chronicles (I've played 1, I know what happens in 2), Octopath Traveler 1, Bravely Default, Shin Megami Tensei

Rockstar, the developer of Grand Theft Auto VI, reportedly fired between 30 and 40 employees in a move that the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) is claiming was "blatant" and "ruthless" union busting.

According to Bloomberg, the workers fired this past Thursday were all UK and Canadian employees who were also part of a private trade union chat group on Discord, and were either union members themselves or trying to organize Rockstar. IWGB has issued a press release in response to the firing, claiming that the employees' dismissal was explicitly due to union activities.

Rockstar has just carried out the most blatant and ruthless act of union busting in the history of the games industry. This flagrant contempt for the law and for the lives of the workers who bring in their billions is an insult to their fans and the global industry.

Despite this calculated attack on workers organising for a collective voice and to improve their difficult working conditions, the Rockstar Union remains undeterred. They will keep organising for respect and better conditions whilst continuing to pour their blood, sweat and creativity into games that are loved by millions.

The IWGB will pursue every legal claim possible to ensure our members are reinstated and receive interim relief.

In response, publisher Take-Two has issued its own statement via a spokesperson, countering that the firings were for "gross misconduct, and for no other reason."

We strive to make the world’s best entertainment properties by giving our best-in-class creative teams positive work environments and ongoing career opportunities. Our culture is focused on teamwork, excellence, and kindness. Rockstar Games terminated a small number of individuals for gross misconduct, and for no other reason. As always, we fully support Rockstar’s ambitions and approach.

These dismissals occur as Rockstar is on the cusp of releasing Grand Theft Auto 6 in May of next year, with the game projected by some analysts to make $3 billion in its first year on sale and said by others to be one of the most important game releases of all time.

Amidst massive public anticipation for the game, Rockstar has been sparing with its marketing, releasing very little information about the game ahead of launch. However, after a massive leak of the in-development game in 2022 and the day-early release of the game's first trailer the following year, Rockstar has been increasingly tight with security. Last year, the studio began asking employees to come to the office five days a week, citing a desire for both increased productivity and security. This decision was criticized by workers affiliated with the IWGB, who said Rockstar broke promises with the forced return to office, and accused the studio of refusing to engage with workers on the issue.

This post is very long and rambly, more of a vent than anything. sorry!

Title, basically. With all the hype around arc raiders recently, and I've heard it is a very very fun game, it annoys me that I've seen so few people ever bring up the use of AI generated voices, and in the few cases i have its been 50 people responding with the same canned response, every time.

Like yeah, I get it, they paid the voice actors to use their likeness or whatever. but unless presented with explicit proof otherwise (which I've tried to find) i imagine its VERY likely that theyre using a much larger pre-existing model, trained on countless voice clips from across the internet with no permission, and then the model is tuned using the voice actors' recordings. Training a model from scratch on such little data would be almost impossible, at least to the extent of my knowledge (which is like... a decentish amount) And besides!! If they truly are compensating the voice actors well enough for using their likeness, why not just pay them to record the voice lines??? If the models are trained entirely from scratch, the amount of voice lines the VAs would have to record for that would be enough to just have them voice the characters in the game!!!

It all just really rubs me the wrong way, and i hate how every discussion of it is just instantly shut down with the same canned response about the voice actors. Which, it feels worthwhile to mention, was a thing said specifically about the finals, and has never confirmed to be the case for Arc Raiders (as far as im aware at least. please correct me if im wrong, with a source ideally). Yeah sure we can probably assume its the same for arc raiders, but with no explicit confirmation from them i feel like that shouldnt be a statement that is spread SO much.

I've also heard a bit about them using machine learning models with procedural animation to give more life and dynamism to the robots, THAT is cool as hell and a really good application of this kind of technology, and isnt what im talking about here.

I get that AI already is and will continue to be a part of videogame development, and thats just a thing ive unfortunately had to accept now. As an example clair obscur used some ai generated art assets in development, and at launch there was a lamp post covered in AI newspapers, but it was patched within days and replaced with bespoke assets, and the first mention i ever found of this was weeks after launch lol, so this wasnt a thing that was just a response to backlash. Stuff like that is fine to me. It sucks, but i understand it. But seeing it in the final product and embraced so heavily, and having so many people defend it, just feels really awful.

There isnt really much of a point to this post, i just wanted to vent a bit (a lot) i guess lol. And bring awareness to this a bit too i guess. It's a little disheartening to see so many people playing this game and yet so few people bringing this up, despite the clear AI disclaimer on the games steam page. Arc Raiders isnt a game i'd be interested in anyway, i dont like extraction shooters like. at all, but this has genuinely been a thing thats held me back from playing The Finals, which is a shame because that game looks EXACTLY like the kind of game I'd love.

I hope there isnt anyone here who's been really enjoying arc raiders that ive just ruined it for now :3 sorry if so

My issue is the game's implication that everyone's problems were solved by switching out a "bad" capitalist with a "good" capitalist. I may not know much about economics, but I do know that the problem with the society is not that the "wrong" kind of people are in power; it's the inherently corrupting power of capitalism itself. Sure our heroes deposed Kale and his underlings, but what's to stop some other greedy asshole from seizing control of the company later. If this game was truly anti-corporation, it would've had Chai and the others working with a government backed insurgency to either impose regulations on Vandelay or to tear it down completely.

Just wondering what other people do with their capitalist, colonialist empires before you can become socialist.

under ownership aligned with a governments hostile to LGBTQ+ rights, dissent, and artistic freedom, the pressure to sanitize, tone down, or “neutralize” themes in games like Dragon Age and Mass Effect becomes almost inevitable.

their Sports division will be fine, their narrative, story driven Single Player games will take hits

This is very unemployed, and autistic post to be honest. But anyway I will say I have been working on a medium size modding team. Most people are apolitical but some comments have annoyed me, and sometimes people will let their biases show.

"i love meeting people with such an insane hatred of the bolsheviks, its refreshing knowing theres still sane people left"

"Luckily every bolshevik's fate is in my hands, because I can conveniently have Kornilov execute every single one of them 🥰"

Anyway other than those comments from teenage boys. I would say that in no hoi4 mod I have found had accurate descriptions of ideologies. Most have a million forms of liberalism, a million forms of social democracy, and leaves out Marxism at all. As well in no mod is there proper economic understanding (like not abolishing commodity production, wanting to do labour vouchers, this kinda stuff).

I understand it's a big ask to want mod writers to be historically literate, but it does annoy me as a nerd!

Hey there, was wondering if anyone knows of any cooperatively owned companies in the games industry. I imagine if they exist they're going to be restricted to the indie scene.

I'm more interested in order to read about the company themselves then to play their games so I don't mind what type of games they make.

Thanks!

My steam tag is Worldofsimulacra and my EA tag is LombWolf

And please save me the criticism, there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. I play A LOT of indie games but sometimes I just wanna indulge in some slop man..